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Friday, February 3, 2012

The Day the Music Died

Feb 3, 1959:

The Music dies in an Iowa cornfield

"It was already snowing at Minneapolis, and the general forecast for the area along the intended route indicated deteriorating weather conditions," wrote the Civil Aeronautics Board investigators six months after the crash that killed Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. "the Big Bopper" Richardson on this day in 1959. "The ceiling and visibility were lowering...and winds aloft were so high one could reasonably have expected to encounter adverse weather during the estimated two-hour flight." All of this information was available to 21-year-old pilot Roger Peterson, if only he had asked for it. Instead, he relied on an incomplete weather report and on the self-confidence of youth in making the decision to take off from Clear Lake, Iowa, shortly after midnight on February 3, 1959. Untrained and uncertified in instrument-only flight, Peterson was flying into conditions that made visual navigation impossible. "Considering all of these facts," the investigating authorities concluded, "the decision to go seems most imprudent."

The young pilot's decision to go may well have been influenced by the eagerness of his almost equally young client, Buddy Holly, to spare himself and his backing band another miserable night in the unheated tour bus that had already sent his drummer to the hospital with symptoms of frostbite. Eleven days into a scheduled 23-stop tour, Holly was fed up, worn out and looking forward to a good night's rest in a warm bed before the next night's show in Moorhead, Minnesota. In a similar mindset was a tired and ill J.P. Richardson, who played on the sympathies of Holly's guitarist to wangle his seat on the flight with Holly. That guitarist was future country legend Waylon Jennings. Meanwhile Tommy Allsup, Holly's guitarist, offered to flip a coin with up-and-coming young star Ritchie Valens for his seat. And so it was that Peterson's Beechcraft Bonanza carried not Holly and his band, but Holly and two of the three other stars of the Winter Dance Party Tour on its ill-fated flight. Dion di Mucci was the fourth of those stars, but he would join Allsup, Jennings and the various other tour musicians on the freezing bus ride ahead.

The plane would crash, and Holly, Richardson, Valens and Peterson would be dead, within five minutes of takeoff, as the direct result of pilot error. Only the next morning, when Waylon Jennings learned what had happened hours earlier, would he recall his final, good-natured exchange with Buddy Holly. "Well," said Holly when he learned of Jennings' swap with the Big Bopper, "I hope your old bus freezes over." Jennings' response: "Well, I hope your plane crashes."

About Me

Actor, Casting Director, Director, Broadcaster, Writer, Singer, Artistic
Director, Dramatur, Producer, Professor, Coach, Husband, Grandfather, Marketing
Professional and life long student Art Lynch joined the staff of John Robert
Powers in 1999. Lynch is also an adjunct professor at the Community College of
Southern Nevada, the Morning Edition Weekend Host for Nevada Public Radio and
one of 67 individuals who represent 126,000 actors as a member of the Board of
Directors of the Screen Actors Guild. He is the past president of the Nevada
Branch of the Screen Actors Guild and of the Professional Audio/Visual Communications
Association. A resident of Nevada since 1984, Lynch has an MA in Communications
from UNLV and a BA in Theater, Speech and Mass Communications from the
University of Illinois, Chicago. He is currently pursuing post-graduate studies
in theater, education and the entertainment industry. Art Lynch studied and
practiced the craft of acting in Chicago and California before settling in
Nevada. With his wife Laura, Art owned and operated a successful marketing
company with national clientele. Art was personally responsible for casting and
directing over 1,000 commercials and industrials, as well as assisting on film
and television projects in many ways. His career also includes earning awards
as a wire service, magazine and broadcast journalist. He is most proud,
however, of his daughters. Ann is a PhD in neuroscience and Beth is the proud
mother of his grandchildren, Evan and Elijah.

Short Film Festival

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